October 4, 1956

Transcribed by Mary Knight

SMITH REUNION HELD SUNDAY

_______________

About 100 members of the Smith family and their friends met at the home of Milford Smith on last Sunday in an all-day gathering. The purpose of the meeting as a sort of "get-together" to honor Elder and Mrs. Henry Smith, who have spent about five years in Japan and to which country they are to return in a few weeks. Brother Smith is son of Milford and has been a missionary to Japan for some years. He and Mrs. Smith came home on "furlough" nearly a year ago. He has visited many churches in various parts of the United States since his return, including Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Carolina and perhaps other states. He found quite a lot of encouragement toward his work as a "direct missionary."

Milford Smith has three sons in the ministry, the other two being Elder Levie Smith, of Lafayette; and Raymond Smith of Davidson County, who has lately entered the work of the ministry. Milford Smith is the son of "Tip" Smith, born on Peyton's Creek in the year 1841, the son of Allen Smith and his wife, Mary Wilburn Smith, commonly known as Polly Ann Smith. We do not know the name of the father of Allen Smith. He had the following children by Polly Ann: Thomas M. Smith, born 1827, and married Sally Ann Beasley; John H Smith, born in 1832; Robert A. Smith, born in 1836, and later removed to Kentucky; Mary E. Smith, born in 1839 and married Watt Toney; William Henry Smith, commonly known as "Tip" Smith, the grandfather of the three young ministers above mentioned; and Daniel H. Smith, born in 1844, and we have no additional information.

Elder Daniel Smith came out of Chatham County, North Carolina, in 1811 to Middle Tennessee, when he was 19 years of age. He fought in the War of 1812, being under Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. He is presumed to have lived in his early married life on Peyton's Creek, not far from the present Monoville. But we do not know positively whom he married, but some say he married first Mazie Mashburn. In looking back through the census records for Smith County for 1820, clear down to 1850, we fail to find even one Mashburn family named. So we are left in doubt as to whom he married the first time. His second wife is said to have been a Halliburton.

One of the sons of the first marriage was Daniel Wiseman Smith, who became perhaps the greatest Baptist preacher Smith County, Tenn., ever produced. He died in September, 1893, at Union Camp, Macon County, being then 79 years of age. He was born in Robertson County, so it may be that the Mashurn, above referred to, was a Robertson lady. This would account for the fact that there is no mention of the Mashburn family in the census records of Smith County prior to 1850.

Exactly what the connection between the Allen Smith family aboved-mentioned, and the Daniel Wiseman Smith family was, we have not been able thus far to learn. There is still another branch of the Smith family, that of the descendants of Malcolm Smith, of whom we propose to write shortly and at greater length.

It may be added that on Sunday a big dinner was enjoyed by all those in attendance at the Smith reunion. Brother Henry Smith, in whose honor the meeting was largely held, is preparing to leave for his return trip to Japan early next month. Elder Frank Carr, who is largely in charge of the church work Brother Smith left to come home on furlough, is expected to come home for a visit to our churches in these parts and to visit his parents and other loved ones in the home land.